Lessons from health insurance responses in counteracting COVID-19: a qualitative comparative analysis of South Korea and three influential countries.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays and restrictions in providing medical services. In response to the medical surge, countries with social insurance systems provided financial incentives to medical institutions. This study aimed to present the directions for health insurance support by comparing countries in terms of the domains and contents of COVID-19 health insurance support to ensure timely support in case of future pandemics.

Expanding Medical Surge Capacity to Counteract COVID-19: South Korea's Medical Fee Adjustment Through the National Health Insurance System.

Background: South Korea has utilized its National Health Insurance (NHI) system to adjust the medical fees payable for healthcare services, to financially support the frontline healthcare providers combating COVID-19. This study evaluated the composition of such adjustments to the medical fees-made to secure resource surge capacity against the pandemic-in South Korea.

Methods: Descriptive statistics and schematization were employed to analyze 3,612,640 COVID-19-related NHI claims from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.